Tritonman Classic Race Report 1

by Kent Kubo

 

3:30am, my alarm goes off, and I’m starting the day early by brushing my teeth. This year, Tritonman is a bit different for me since I am the sponsorship coordinator as well a competitor…By 3:50am I’m out the door and on my way down to Fiesta Island. 4:15am rolls around and the team is off to setting up for Tritonman Day 2. The second day is easier to set up since we all know exactly where things go, it’s just a matter if we can take on 500+ athletes at once. I finish setting up the aid tables (shout out to Dave for the Justin Bieber theme), and then head off over to the transition area so set up my bike.

It’s now 5:30am, exactly 1.5 hours until the first wave starts. I take my bike out of my car, and bring it over to transition, claiming a good spot since no one else other than teammates were even at the event. Taking an edge spot on the rack, I lay out all my items and think through everything, only to realize that I haven’t thought much about the race because I had been so busy with setting up the race. Nonetheless, I rack up, lay out my stuff neatly, and head back to the registration tent to relax until the race starts. Well, still helping people out moving stuff around and setting up.

6:40am rolls around and I start to put on my wetsuit. My mom, sister, and my good friend Brian had came down to cheer me on the race, so I was able to clear my mind a bit by talking with them. 7:00am and the first wave starts, so my cheer squad wishes me a good luck and I enter the water to get ready for the second wave. Out in the water, I can feel myself floating easily with my wetsuit, as I swim by a couple jellyfishes. Since swimming is my strong suite, I make my way towards the front of the pack and wait for the start. ‘Boom’ and we’re off! I sprint my way towards the lead pack and make a group with a couple other swimmers. We draft off of each other and further separate ourselves from the rest of the pack, eventually catching up to the first wave. I exit transition, and at this point I’m feeling great, and fly out on my bike towards Fiesta Island. Eventually, Jason (Stofleth) catches me at the end of the first lap, and Dustin zooms right past me at the very end of the bike portion, making it a battle between us on the run. Unfortunately, Dustin is a way better runner than I am so I get crushed…..but it’s ok as I finish happily with everyone cheering for me at every corner. I run across the finish line, meet up with my cheerleaders, and then head back to the registration tent to start set up for awards. An hour later, I finish setting up, and now it’s finally time for me to relax.

Being able to compete in the race that I helped set up was a congenial experience. I definitely have a couple things to work on, but overall I was happy with my performance, and even happier with how smoothly Tritonman came along. Here’s to a great rest of the season, and see you all out back at Fiesta island next year!

Tritonman Classic Race Report 2

by Katie Hosch
3am
My alarm goes off, and I instantly thought “it’s 3 already?” I rolled out of bed (not that I was actually asleep anyways). So I continued with my normal morning routine: made coffee, ate cereal, put on sunscreen, caught up on the world. Since this was the day of the draft legal race, I had to put on my temporary tattoos- which seemingly everyone screwed up. I finished packing up all my stuff, grabbed my bike, bike pump, and first aid kit (I’m the safety officer) and headed out.

4am
Mission bay. Dark and early.
I was on the registration team, so our duties began pretty much as soon as I got there, we set up all the tents and tables, as well as getting the computers all ready.

5am
Registration opens.
The process began, and the sleep deprived (and generally pretty nice) triathletes approached us to receive their numbers

6:15am
Registration closes.
Clare and I went to go set up our transition areas, and begin a warm-up. As I ran past the aid station during warm-up, the aid table team was preparing and super stoked to hear the theme song (Justin Beiber’s Sorry) on a continuous loop.

8:10am
Our names our called numerically so we can swim out to the start line. The air horn blew and we were off, I realized I hadn’t swam with a big group of people since November… I got out of the swim and began to take off my wetsuit and it got stuck on my arm. I got on the bike and realized I should have swam slightly faster, but the bike ended up being pretty good. And as always the run hurt, a lot. But all the guys at the aid station helped to lift my spirits each time I passed. Overall another amazing Tritonman!